Tavares stays hot as Islanders cool off Knights
NEW YORK -- Reigning NHL first star of the week John Tavares remained red-hot Monday night when he scored twice as the New York Islanders pulled away for a 6-3 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights at Barclays Center.
Tavares' goals opened and closed a flurry of five unanswered goals by the Islanders (7-4-1), who have won five of six. The New York captain has eight goals in his last three games.
New York's Andrew Ladd scored in the first period, and Mathew Barzal, Cal Clutterbuck and Nikolay Kulemin added goals. Islanders goalie Jaroslav Halak recorded 31 saves.
William Karlsson, Alex Tuch and Colin Miller scored for the Golden Knights (8-2-0), who saw the end of their five-game winning streak -- tied for the longest by a first-year NHL club.
Vegas goalie Oscar Dansk, the league's second star of the week last week, made 17 saves before exiting with an undisclosed injury late in the second. Maxime Lagace, making his NHL debut, stopped seven of the 11 shots he faced.
The Golden Knights scored the first short-handed goal in franchise history at 9:31 of the first. New York defenseman Nick Leddy tried clearing the puck, but Cody Eakin got a stick on it and dished to Karlsson, who swooped in on Halak untouched.
Ladd tied the score for the Islanders with 6:10 left in the opening period, when his shot from the right faceoff circle sailed under Dansk's glove.
The Golden Knights regained the lead with a power-play goal just 1:56 later, when Miller's shot sailed past kneeling New York defenseman Calvin de Haan, ticked off the stick of Tuch and trickled past Halak.
The Islanders tied the game and took the lead in an eventful span of less than three minutes late in the second period.
Tavares knotted the score at 2-2 when he redirected Leddy's shot from the right faceoff circle with 5:10 remaining in the period. As the Islanders celebrated, Dansk skated out of the goal and to a trainer before eventually leaving.
The Islanders wasted little time spoiling Lagace's moment. Barzal put New York ahead for good with 2:16 left when he took a wraparound pass from Anders Lee, who was stationed to the right of Lagace, and poked the puck into the open left corner of the net.
Clutterbuck (4:44), Kulemin (8:26) and Tavares (12:38) scored off odd-man rush goals in the third before Miller capped the scoring with 5:19 left.
NOTES: The Islanders scratched D Thomas Hickey, D Scott Mayfield and C Alan Quine. ... The Golden Knights scratched LW Brendan Leipsic, D Jon Merrill and D Shea Theodore.